Why do I feel numb after so many hard conversations at work?

You can hold almost any hard conversation now, one after another, without breaking. But carrying that many has quietly numbed you, even to your own feelings. The numbness is not coldness. It is what a person does to survive absorbing more grief than anyone was built to hold. Numbness protects you on the floor, but if it stays it starts to wall you off from your own life too. The goal is not to feel everything at work; you could not function. The goal is to let yourself thaw somewhere safe, so the wall does not become permanent. Find one place off the clock where you let a real feeling through. Talk to someone who gets it, sit with a hard shift instead of shoving it down, cry if it comes. You went numb to keep going. You stay whole by choosing, on purpose, to feel again where it is safe to.